Sculpture Late 19 th century

Figure JEAN-BAPTISTE CARPEAUX, Ugolino and His Children, 1865–1867. Marble, 6’ 5” high. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Josephine Bay Paul and C. Michael Paul Foundation, Inc. and the Charles Ulrich and Josephine Bay Foundation, Inc., gifts, 1967).

3 Carpeaux combines Realism, Renaissance and Baroque sculpture. Based on a passage in Dante’s Inferno, Count Ugolino and his 4 sons are starving to death locked in a tower; his children offer themselves as food upon seeing their father “bite his hands in grief”

Auguste Rodin Interested by movement and texture in his work. These themes have parallels to Impressionism and Photography. Used his fingers to work sculptures in clay and then later made molds for bronze castings.

Figure AUGUSTE RODIN, Walking Man, Bronze, 6’ 11 ¾” high. Musee d’Orsay, Paris.

10 Rodin’s mastery of anatomy and his ability to capture transitory motion are acutely demonstrated in the headless and armless figure in mid-stride Rodin: “I have always sought to give some indication of movement in my statues…rarely depicting complete repose…photographs present the odd appearance of a man suddenly stricken with paralysis and petrified in his pose…it is the artist who is truthful and it is photography which lies, for in reality time does not stop”.

Figure AUGUSTE RODIN, Burghers of Calais, Bronze, 6’ 10 ½” high, 7’ 11” long, 6’ 6” deep. Musee Rodin, Paris. The Burghers of Calais commemorates a heroic episode in the Hundred Years’ War. During the English siege of Calais (France) in 1347, 6 of the city’s leaders offer themselves in return for the English king’s promise to lift the siege and spare everyone else Rodin designed it without a traditional high base in the hope that the citizens of Calais would be inspired by the representation of their ancestors standing eye-level in the city center preparing to leave on their sacrificial journey.

Figure AUGUSTE RODIN, Burghers of Calais, Bronze, 6’ 10 ½” high, 7’ 11” long, 6’ 6” deep. Musee Rodin, Paris.

Right Figure GUSTAV KLIMT, The Kiss, 1907–1908. Oil on canvas, 5’ 10 3/4” x 5’ 10 3/4”. Österreichische Galerie Belvedere,Vienna.

Camille Claudel